It was the rolling stock that demanded the most urgent attention—­engines, carriages and wagons and especially carriages.  Of carriages there were not enough for the traffic of the line, and many were in a very sorry condition, particularly those which had been taken over with the Holywood and Bangor Railway, acquired by the company the previous year.  One weekend, soon after I joined the service, I had all passenger carriages brought into Belfast, except those employed in running Sunday trains, and early on the Sunday morning (it was in the summer) with the company’s locomotive and mechanical engineer I examined each carriage thoroughly from top to bottom, inside and out, above and below, and with his practical help and expert knowledge, noted carefully down the defects of each.  He worked with a will, delighted that someone as enthusiastic and even younger than himself was now in charge.  He little suspected, I am sure, how ignorant I was of practical matters, as I kept my own counsel which was my habit when prudence so dictated.  I knew the names of things and was well versed in the theory and statistics of repairs and renewals, but that was all.  A fine worker was and is R. G. Miller.  Well over 70 now, healthy and energetic still, he occupies the position he did then.  Age has not withered nor custom staled his juvenility.  I met him on Kingstown promenade the other day walking with an elastic step and with the brightness of youth in his eye.  The ordinary age-retirement limit, though a good rule generally, was not for him.  Daylight failed and night came on before our task was finished, several carriages remaining unexamined.  These and the Sunday running vehicles we subjected to scrutiny during the following week.  At the next meeting of the Board I presented a report of what I had done, and urged that a number of new carriages should be contracted for without delay, enlarging upon the return we might confidently expect from a responsive traffic.  The Chairman and most of the Board were a little aghast at what appeared, to a small company that had only recently emerged from straitened circumstances, a very large order.  But Lord Pirrie came to the rescue, strongly supported my proposal and commended the thoroughness with which I had tackled the subject.  The day was won, the carriages secure, and the order for their construction was placed with a firm in Birmingham.  This expenditure was the precursor of further large outlays, for it was soon seen that the prospects of the company warranted a bold course.

I may, I am sure, be pardoned if I quote here some words from the report of Sir James Allport’s Commission on Irish Public Works.  It is dated 4th January, 1888.  I had then been less than three years with the County Down, and so could claim but a modicum of the praise it contains, and my modesty, therefore, need not be alarmed.  The words are:  “The history of the Belfast and County Down Company is sufficient to show how greatly both shareholders